I'm not sure how to do this...

I got home from a girls' night in Chicago this morning to a little girl in her jammies, with dark circles under her eyes.

Lucy's sick. 

She clearly had a fever.  She lay on the couch, sort of weepy and sniffly all afternoon. Here she is moments after denying that she was sick or tired AT ALL!

Here's the thing I am not sure I'm very good at...  Being a mom to sick Lucy. 

When Coen was her age, and he was sick and/or feverish, he would climb his hot little body into my lap and cuddle until he either fell asleep or felt better.  Not Lucy.

She does not want to be cuddled.  When I try to rub her back or smooth her hair she pulls away from me.  "Do you want me to let you be?" I asked her. She nodded and fell asleep after I walked away from the couch.

Huh.

It's hard. I know how to cuddle and soothe, to lullaby and shush and sympathetically and lovingly gaze.  Lucy will have no such thing.  She wants to be left alone, to be talked to normally and above all things, not be coddled.  My mom says this is how I was as a kid.  I vaguely remember being perfectly happy left under the blankets on the couch.  So there you go. I have to be a mom to a kid who wants me to be a mom in a way that isn't comfortable for me, really.  But what a wonderful challenge, I suppose. 

She's in bed now.  And later, when she cries for me, I'll just sit on the very edge of her bed, not touching her at all or saying anything soft and loving and warm.  But I'll be thinking it. 

And I guess that's just what it means to be her momma.

A scattered post

I'm having bloggers block.

So I figured I better just write something and post it and then maybe I'll get over it.

I went back on facebook the other night.  Some people were sad to see that I'd lost my resolve.  Some people gave me a hearty welcome.  I was missed!  Hurrah. Isn't it a lovely thing, to know you're missed?

When I logged in (it was that easy, by the way, to reinstate my account: just log in!)  It's like those terrible break up/get back together/break up/ get back together experiences you always see people have in middle school.  Middle age too I suppose.   Anyhow, I digress.  So I logged in... and you know that feeling you get when you come home after having been at a really nice hotel for a few days?  That feeling when you walk in and your house looks sort of...dumpy?  Well that's how facebook looked when I logged back in.  Like a house after you've been in a posh hotel.  Sorta strange.  A little messy.  Weird.

During my absence, I did prolly what you did.  I went to work.  I came home and hung out with my family.  I got a new phone!  Here's me, trying to figure it out:

It was troublesome at first, but I'm getting used to it.

I watched the Oscars.

During the Oscars, Pink came on singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, as a Judy Garland tribute.  Immediately I thought of my friend Stephanie and texted her to let her know.  I knew that would thrill her to see that.  I felt good, making her feel known.  Isn't it also a wonderful thing, to feel known?

And then after a few back and forth texts, she texted, "I love that you know me so well"

That made me happy.

So that's all.  Not much has happened. But you know, I read more. I wrote more in my journal, but not the story I'm working on.  I just sat and breathed in the quiet of my living room.  That was really nice. I think I'll do that some more. 

Balance is nice.

So there you go.
1. It's good to know you're missed in an absence of sorts.
2. It's good to feel known (or to make someone feel known).
3. Balance is good too.

Happy Friday everyone!